Mean Betty: Another Celebrity Nude Photo Scandal? Yawn!

Some (fake) nude photos of Christina Hendricks and Olivia Munn have recently emerged—but Mean Betty is tired of all these celebrity nude photo scandals. Here’s why.

-Mean Betty

Quick, kittens: What do Blake Lively, Scarlett Johansson, and Vanessa Hudgens all have in common? You have three seconds… two… one… Time’s up! What’s your answer? Give it your best guess, kittens!

If you said “nude photo scandals,” congratulations! You’ve hit the proverbial nail on the metaphorical head. These three celebrities, along with countless others, have all had nude photo scandals in recent years. What’s more, over the past few days, Miss Christina Hendricks and Miss Olivia Munn have joined their illustrious ranks. Once upon a time, these sorts of scandals were all the rage, especially in the cases of such formerly squeaky-clean Disney stars as Little Miss Vanessa. But really, kittens? Meanie has grown oh so tired of them. Haven’t you?

First things first: The pictures of Christina first surfaced here, although they have since been removed. While at least one of the images featuring the scantily-clad Mad Men bombshell is quite possibly real—her rep did confirm that she was hacked and that some photos were stolen—the one actually depicting her topless is not. Her rep stated in no uncertain terms, “The topless image is fake and not an image of Christina.”

Thank you for clearing that up, Christina’s Rep, even if it hasn’t stopped the masses from pouring over the images anyway. The photos of Olivia, too, are apparently not-so-clever forgeries; she wasn’t hacked at all. In response to the scandal, she Tweeted the following:

But now to the meat of the matter: Why, kittens, even if the photos are fake, do we gobble them up so? Is there some sort of symbolic significance to our desire to strip celebrities of their clothing? We place these women on pedestals of impossible heights and worship them as paragons of perfection—and then we delight when they come tumbling down, shouting war whoops and dancing on their ruins. Do we do it to raise ourselves up to be closer to them? Or do we do it to drag them down to be closer to us? Meanie suspects that a certain Austrian doctor would have a little something to say about that!

Meanie believes that we have absolutely no reason to be as obsessed with these so-called “scandals” as we are. Even if the photos of Christina and Olivia were real, we have no grounds to stand upon when it comes to judging them. Meanie is certain that if she asked a crowd to raise their hands if they have ever taken sexy pictures of themselves, most of those hands would be in the air. Though Meanie of course does not condone underage teens taking and distributing nude photos, Christina and Olivia are both fully-grown, fully-functioning adults. If they had taken those scandalous photos of themselves, they would have been completely aware of what they were doing, as well as of all the strings that come attached to it. Besides, sending sexy images to your partner can be a wonderful way of spicing up relationships of all types. Christina and Olivia are perfectly entitled to take those photos if they feel like it, just as all of us “normal people” are. So why all the shock and awe when we discover that they might have done so? It’s time for us to get over ourselves and stop judging—regardless as to whether the photos are real or not.

In parting, Meanie has a few words for the forgers of Christina’s and Olivia’s “nude photos:” Do you really, truly have nothing better to do with your time than to Photoshop people’s heads onto other people’s naked bodies? Grow up and get a life!